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Recruitment Yarns: Learn|Share|Thrive | Collaborate

Last year I attended Recruitment Yarns. This is not my usual forum, so I had to think whether my attendance would add value to my own learning as well as my understanding of recruitment industry. But I can confirm that it did both of those things. So I definitely recommend attending if you are interested in recruitment.

Yarns is a un-conference that brings together boutique and medium sized recruitment agencies and indutry leaders together in a relaxed setting where they talk all things recruitment. Topics ranging from candidate care through to technology, social media, industry benchmarking, talent retention, engagement and development, workforce management, compliance and risk mitigation. And to wrap it all, Recruitment Yarns supports Mobility Dogs which is a great cause.

I have experienced interactions with recruitment agencies both as a candidate and a client. So I thought I knew what happens behind the scenes. But I was pleasantly surprised by the conversations in the round tables.

Here are my 3 key takeaways and some very exciting news for candidates and clients alike:

Chatbots: while the HR technology industry is generally behind in use of artificial intelligence, it was great to see Raj Soni from SmartAI showcasing how recruitment industry is embracing the future. It has no choice, to survive it must innovate. It was also great to see recruitment agencies who already displayed great knowledge of AI and I suspect they are going to leave their competitors behind very soon!

Job Postings: I won’t go into the raft of interesting conversations we had about popular job listing sites. But I will say this to both candidates and clients, do you know where and who is storing candidates data? Adzuna directs candidates straight to the clients ATS or chosen site to apply. It doesn’t ‘own’ the candidate in traditional terms.

Forums: Recruitment Yarns is a workshop style event that is focused on development of leaders in the recruitment industry. While there are two key note speakers, the conversation is casual and encourages participation. Unlike other recruitment forums, this one is focused on participant’s development beyond the conference.